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IndieGames.com is presented by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, which runs the Independent Games Festival & Summit every year at Game Developers Conference. The company (producer of the Game Developers Conference series, Gamasutra.com and Game Developer magazine) established the Independent Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers.

In the early 1990s, sandbox puzzler series The Incredible Machine debuted, offering players all the tools and trinkets they could want to build wild Rube Goldberg devices to complete various tasks. Fast forward 20 years, and the original creators are working on a spiritual successor, called Contraption Maker, due for Windows and Mac later this year.

Spotkin, the newly-formed team behind the game, is a 5-person outfit, with The Incredible Machine's Kevin Ryan, Jeff Tunnell, and Brian Hahn (the original pixel artist) on board. Developer Timothy Aste spoke to me a bit about what the successor will offer.

Of course, there will be a fine layer of improved physics, art, and animation. "The higher fidelity graphics really shine on making the puzzles more fun an exciting (especially for those who enjoy flipping cats). In addition, we have some really cool things in development that are new to the series such as a super beefed up the sandbox mode and allow players to build much more elaborate puzzles and machines that can interconnect and be easily share-able over the internet," says Timothy.

"Our goal for that is to create an experience where you can sit down with some friends and build really creative and interesting contraptions together, that interconnect. We are also all about moddability, allowing players to get really creative and make their own content in the game. We have even discussed some really 'out there' stuff such possibly support for Arduino to control real life puzzle elements, but we'll have to wait and see if we can get that far. We have even more plans but we should save a little for our first trailer!"

Contraption Maker will be available on Windows and Mac with an early access program launching this summer.